This man is changing my long held views on the topic of chemical fertilizers and organic farming . Never knew I would ever support chemical fertilizers . Full support from India 🇮🇳.
Though I am a fan of organic agriculture (because I don't want to rely on fertiliser supply chains and use toxic pesticides), I love your channel because it explains the sociology and politics of agriculture, something I didn't know even existed. I didn't think agriculture had such an interesting history. I am writing this to show my appreciation for your previous videos which I have watched, explaining the history of the Soil Association.
Regenerative farming and Permaculture are interests of mine I really appreciate the spotlight you’re putting on the difference between these and organic farming. This has definitely been a blind spot for me
I agree with you for most of this, although I do think regenerative farming can do everything that organic farming does and more. Cholderton estate for example farms organically and regeneratively and still has 500 head of sheep and 600 head of cattle, plus arable. It is one of the most nature friendly farms in the UK and still provides a very good amount of food etc. Have you heard of this and what is your take on this? I’m not an expert so always keen to hear your opinion on things.
Thanks for responding to my comment, Oli. It’s not that I think we don’t need environmentalism. The issue I have with what I called the 'climate agenda' is that much of it presents the same problems as organic agriculture: more expensive food and energy, which causes hardship for many people, especially those already at the edge of their financial limits. I agree that we need environmentalism paired with affordable food policies and reasonable emissions targets, but I fear that's not what we have today.
Here's the conundrum: Organic farming is only viable if we reduce our population. Yet, organic farming is more labour-intensive. I'm seeing a problem here.
As an organic farmer, I have to agree with you. Organic farming is a luxury for the upper middle class and the rich. Our products are way more expensive than conventional farming because they require a lot more labour and, in some cases, will produce less than conventional farming. Now, I have to disagree that the health of the soil isn't inherently correlated to the health of the livestock and the health of the people. When we spray chemical fertelizers and pesticides, the soil and the plants absorb them and go into our body when we eat them. The same happens with animals that are given certain anti-biotics. Now this small amount of unhealthy chemicals and such don't warrant extreme unhealthy changes in your body. But given enough time and exposure, they can increase the risk of certain diseases. Does this warrant a need to stop conventional farming? No. Like I said before, organic produce is a luxury for the whealthy. I will always recommend buying organic. But if you can't afford it, I won't tell you to starve to death. One aspect of farming that you haven't talked about is those farms where chickens are all crammed together in a super small space. People tend to see these as evil. I tend to see them as the only way to keep meat prices down. I wonder what's your opinion on this.
When you look at the toxins that people put into their bodies, the chemicals sprayed on plants are miniscule. Animal products are different, however, people get overly concerned about pesticides and what not. If someone is getting half their calories from sugar and the fats found in processed foods, with the emulsifiers and whatnot to make these products shelf stable, then that has to be seen as a lot of toxins. To live on a healthy diet it is best to cut out the obvious garbage, then the body can do its job of dealing with the toxins that do arrive from non-organic farming practices.
People only tend to see battery laying systems as evil when it's done in the countryside. If it's the Singaporeans doing it in a skyscraper, the same folks who will tell you it's evil are gonna be telling you that it's the greatest thing since crop rotation.
They only see battery laying systems as evil if it's done in the countryside. If it's done in a skyscraper in Singapore, the same people will think it's great.
@@FLopesVieira Given the choice, everyone would buy the organic produce if it was the same price and equally available. But the truth is that buying organic is usually conspicuous consumption. By the time I have that organic broccoli in the pot with a dozen other things, I can't tell if it is organic. Hence I have not gone 'all in' with organic. I buy single ingredient foods and cook with them from scratch, thereby avoiding 99% of the toxins that would be in my diet if I was eating junk food and processed foods.
Any methods that lower my farms dependence on chemical fertiliser are welcome. The energy, expense, and labour are expensive; and add significantly to the bottom line. That being said, i need to maintain profits, and you as a consumer need me to maintain production rates
This recovering dairy farmer says Good Luck. A typical consumer in the developed world has no clue about how food gets to their dinner plate. Most Covid gardens are now weedy. Stay safe.
Fascinating and thought-provoking examination of reality vs ideology. Concerning the population, if people were to eat a great deal less (UK population is 66% overweight or obese) and also eat real food, rather than hyperprocessed chemical stews then we could support more healthy people. There is no likelihood that spreading the population widely round the world will help, farming generally is becoming more commercialised requiring less people per hectare to produce the same amount of food. People in developing countries are migrating to the towns and cities to escape the drudgery and uncertainty of family farming. Forcing people back onto the land will not work. Mao imposed a reduction of food in Communist China, and as with all Communist systems it was a failure, killing tens of millions of people, more than anyone else in history, including his Communist buddy, Stalin. So perhaps the Organic movement could advocate a Communist approach to agriculture instead of getting itchy about its Fascist roots?
Here in the USA, I’ve noticed the successful organic farmers are actually a lot like the conventional farmers in that they make huge investments in machinery and technology to get all the extra work done. They don’t buy synthetic fertilizer but they do spend a lot of money importing manure from animals which were fed roundup ready crops raised with synthetic fertilizer. Probably not what the organic advocates have in mind….. And yes, flesh out an organic advocate long enough, they will tell you there’s just too many people.
You talk quite a bit about the origins of organic farming in britain, but can you talk about the origins of organic agriculture on the continent sometimes? Especially considering that its older than the British spin on it, and Stanisław Karłowski and Rudolf Steiner are also quite the characters.
You could look at organic farming as pushback against the horrors of factory farming, where people are rightly horrified at the conditions their food is produced. Is it misguided? Maybe, but so is the other extreme. Recommend Reactions The End of Haber Bosch to put organics in context.
i thought this over a bit, and why not just grow in indoor tunnels. spain does that and you can make it organic or not, ideally you could do it organically but then you increase your growing seasons and allow more plants to grow. and you can farm a lot more efficiently in less space. wouldn't work for wheat or rapeseed, and england would be competing with spain but i still think you could still do it organically and not use the haber bosch process
I couldn't help but be wryly amused that the person championing organic farming (and criticising fascism) started complaining about immigrants; it did seem a little blood and soil. Should we tell him that many areas of UK farming are very dependent on immigrant labour?
This Oli mainly thinks of farming in terms of grains, legumes, and animals rather than fruit, vegetables, and other more luxurious stuff. Also, leftist socialists like George Galloway don't like open borders, because it requires more resources from the host state, and causes brain drain in the supplying state.
Yes, the stats were that 50% of the population required fertiliser to live, but the 10million number is clearly about migrants. 50% of the population would be more like 35million.
Yes the organic can't feed everyone but on the other hand, this maybe very unpopular but, everyone doesn't really deserves to live and is totally contingent on the existence of abundant fossil fuels. There is ofcourse a hard limit on the carrying capacity of our earth.
I have a very different take on this. Industrial / chemical agriculture is insanely labor efficient, but also insanely inefficient in regards to economic outputs (practically everyone is going bankrupt without subsidies), and health outcomes (chronic disease and obesity). If you compare caloric / nutritional and economic output of a food forest, or even a biointensive market garden, it would beat most monocroped nonsense. But it needs more people, who know what they are doing. We could easily feed double the current population, if more people were involved in farming than in candy production 😂
Farmers tend to be quick to adopt what works, so how about you go organise a demonstration ready that doesn't make 95% of its income through tourism? Anyway, you are kinda pointing out the obvious. Modern agriculture is insanely labour efficient. Whatever you advocate for isn't. Labour is really, really expensive. Have you already checked how much people want to get payed nowadays? You are either advocating for a return of pesantries, or for a whole lot of unpaid family labour
What we need is decentralisation of agriculture, more market gardening and people willing to grow food in their own gardens. I agree with your argument but it is laid out in an extremely black and white way. Obviously farming 100s of acres "organically" isnt going to work as well. But i believe smaller scale operations would be a lot more efficient in terms of output. Seed saving is another component to this too, which has created a system of debt for farmers, and could be argued is creating relience on other products like fertilisers and pesticides. Look into landrace gardening particularly Joseph Lofthouse's book. It adds a whole new angle to this subject.
P.s I also think the rewilding movement is anti human and i heavily disagree with it. Those people assume humans and nature are separate entities. I believe we can live as part of the ecosystem and in balance with nature. It annoys me that they just want to throw everybody into concrete megacities and leave land to go "wild". The obvious result of that is mass dependency on the system, and eventually mass starvation.
If humanity could cut its meat intake, the land that was then used for that could then be used for human consumption, I would think farming could become more sustainable. The debate on organic for me is the pesticide not fertiliser. I think with scientific advances we will have in the future plants engineered to target pests and insects engineered to take weeds and such. I would love to see more research into that area. But we have only slightly delved into that area with gmo’s which is a very brute force method, with crisper now it’s a new world it’s editing dna instead of modifying it.
A lot of animals are grazed on land not fit for anything else for example hills and fells. Grass is a major part of the cycle of sequestration and carbon adsorption, more than trees in many areas.
The things you are addressing are so important it is criminal this channel is not getting better traction in the algorithm
This man is changing my long held views on the topic of chemical fertilizers and organic farming . Never knew I would ever support chemical fertilizers . Full support from India 🇮🇳.
Though I am a fan of organic agriculture (because I don't want to rely on fertiliser supply chains and use toxic pesticides), I love your channel because it explains the sociology and politics of agriculture, something I didn't know even existed.
I didn't think agriculture had such an interesting history.
I am writing this to show my appreciation for your previous videos which I have watched, explaining the history of the Soil Association.
Regenerative farming and Permaculture are interests of mine I really appreciate the spotlight you’re putting on the difference between these and organic farming. This has definitely been a blind spot for me
I agree with you for most of this, although I do think regenerative farming can do everything that organic farming does and more.
Cholderton estate for example farms organically and regeneratively and still has 500 head of sheep and 600 head of cattle, plus arable. It is one of the most nature friendly farms in the UK and still provides a very good amount of food etc. Have you heard of this and what is your take on this? I’m not an expert so always keen to hear your opinion on things.
Thanks for responding to my comment, Oli. It’s not that I think we don’t need environmentalism. The issue I have with what I called the 'climate agenda' is that much of it presents the same problems as organic agriculture: more expensive food and energy, which causes hardship for many people, especially those already at the edge of their financial limits. I agree that we need environmentalism paired with affordable food policies and reasonable emissions targets, but I fear that's not what we have today.
Here's the conundrum: Organic farming is only viable if we reduce our population. Yet, organic farming is more labour-intensive. I'm seeing a problem here.
As an organic farmer, I have to agree with you.
Organic farming is a luxury for the upper middle class and the rich. Our products are way more expensive than conventional farming because they require a lot more labour and, in some cases, will produce less than conventional farming.
Now, I have to disagree that the health of the soil isn't inherently correlated to the health of the livestock and the health of the people. When we spray chemical fertelizers and pesticides, the soil and the plants absorb them and go into our body when we eat them. The same happens with animals that are given certain anti-biotics. Now this small amount of unhealthy chemicals and such don't warrant extreme unhealthy changes in your body. But given enough time and exposure, they can increase the risk of certain diseases. Does this warrant a need to stop conventional farming? No. Like I said before, organic produce is a luxury for the whealthy. I will always recommend buying organic. But if you can't afford it, I won't tell you to starve to death.
One aspect of farming that you haven't talked about is those farms where chickens are all crammed together in a super small space. People tend to see these as evil. I tend to see them as the only way to keep meat prices down. I wonder what's your opinion on this.
When you look at the toxins that people put into their bodies, the chemicals sprayed on plants are miniscule. Animal products are different, however, people get overly concerned about pesticides and what not.
If someone is getting half their calories from sugar and the fats found in processed foods, with the emulsifiers and whatnot to make these products shelf stable, then that has to be seen as a lot of toxins.
To live on a healthy diet it is best to cut out the obvious garbage, then the body can do its job of dealing with the toxins that do arrive from non-organic farming practices.
@pdsnpsnldlqnop3330 makes total sense what you are saying. But I still prefer eating organic if I have the possibility.
People only tend to see battery laying systems as evil when it's done in the countryside.
If it's the Singaporeans doing it in a skyscraper, the same folks who will tell you it's evil are gonna be telling you that it's the greatest thing since crop rotation.
They only see battery laying systems as evil if it's done in the countryside.
If it's done in a skyscraper in Singapore, the same people will think it's great.
@@FLopesVieira Given the choice, everyone would buy the organic produce if it was the same price and equally available. But the truth is that buying organic is usually conspicuous consumption. By the time I have that organic broccoli in the pot with a dozen other things, I can't tell if it is organic.
Hence I have not gone 'all in' with organic. I buy single ingredient foods and cook with them from scratch, thereby avoiding 99% of the toxins that would be in my diet if I was eating junk food and processed foods.
Well done sir, you have, incredibly gracefully, shut down each and every comment. ive enjoyed this
Wow,well done thought provoking and who knew about the Fascist ideology behind the organic movement.
Any methods that lower my farms dependence on chemical fertiliser are welcome. The energy, expense, and labour are expensive; and add significantly to the bottom line. That being said, i need to maintain profits, and you as a consumer need me to maintain production rates
I personally want to grow organic because I don't want to be hit by fertiliser supply shocks like what happened after the war in Ukraine.
This recovering dairy farmer says Good Luck. A typical consumer in the developed world has no clue about how food gets to their dinner plate. Most Covid gardens are now weedy. Stay safe.
Fascinating and thought-provoking examination of reality vs ideology. Concerning the population, if people were to eat a great deal less (UK population is 66% overweight or obese) and also eat real food, rather than hyperprocessed chemical stews then we could support more healthy people. There is no likelihood that spreading the population widely round the world will help, farming generally is becoming more commercialised requiring less people per hectare to produce the same amount of food. People in developing countries are migrating to the towns and cities to escape the drudgery and uncertainty of family farming. Forcing people back onto the land will not work. Mao imposed a reduction of food in Communist China, and as with all Communist systems it was a failure, killing tens of millions of people, more than anyone else in history, including his Communist buddy, Stalin. So perhaps the Organic movement could advocate a Communist approach to agriculture instead of getting itchy about its Fascist roots?
Here in the USA, I’ve noticed the successful organic farmers are actually a lot like the conventional farmers in that they make huge investments in machinery and technology to get all the extra work done. They don’t buy synthetic fertilizer but they do spend a lot of money importing manure from animals which were fed roundup ready crops raised with synthetic fertilizer. Probably not what the organic advocates have in mind….. And yes, flesh out an organic advocate long enough, they will tell you there’s just too many people.
You talk quite a bit about the origins of organic farming in britain, but can you talk about the origins of organic agriculture on the continent sometimes?
Especially considering that its older than the British spin on it, and Stanisław Karłowski and Rudolf Steiner are also quite the characters.
Probably need to have a discussion over the definition of what the term "organic" is today vs. 100 years ago.
You could look at organic farming as pushback against the horrors of factory farming, where people are rightly horrified at the conditions their food is produced.
Is it misguided? Maybe, but so is the other extreme.
Recommend Reactions The End of Haber Bosch to put organics in context.
Mitchell and Webb sketch still best of this generation
i thought this over a bit, and why not just grow in indoor tunnels. spain does that and you can make it organic or not, ideally you could do it organically but then you increase your growing seasons and allow more plants to grow. and you can farm a lot more efficiently in less space. wouldn't work for wheat or rapeseed, and england would be competing with spain but i still think you could still do it organically and not use the haber bosch process
One of Ollie's best
I couldn't help but be wryly amused that the person championing organic farming (and criticising fascism) started complaining about immigrants; it did seem a little blood and soil.
Should we tell him that many areas of UK farming are very dependent on immigrant labour?
This Oli mainly thinks of farming in terms of grains, legumes, and animals rather than fruit, vegetables, and other more luxurious stuff.
Also, leftist socialists like George Galloway don't like open borders, because it requires more resources from the host state, and causes brain drain in the supplying state.
Yes, the stats were that 50% of the population required fertiliser to live, but the 10million number is clearly about migrants. 50% of the population would be more like 35million.
Very sharp - well done!
Yes the organic can't feed everyone but on the other hand, this maybe very unpopular but, everyone doesn't really deserves to live and is totally contingent on the existence of abundant fossil fuels. There is ofcourse a hard limit on the carrying capacity of our earth.
I have a very different take on this. Industrial / chemical agriculture is insanely labor efficient, but also insanely inefficient in regards to economic outputs (practically everyone is going bankrupt without subsidies), and health outcomes (chronic disease and obesity).
If you compare caloric / nutritional and economic output of a food forest, or even a biointensive market garden, it would beat most monocroped nonsense. But it needs more people, who know what they are doing.
We could easily feed double the current population, if more people were involved in farming than in candy production 😂
Farmers tend to be quick to adopt what works, so how about you go organise a demonstration ready that doesn't make 95% of its income through tourism?
Anyway, you are kinda pointing out the obvious.
Modern agriculture is insanely labour efficient. Whatever you advocate for isn't. Labour is really, really expensive. Have you already checked how much people want to get payed nowadays?
You are either advocating for a return of pesantries, or for a whole lot of unpaid family labour
What we need is decentralisation of agriculture, more market gardening and people willing to grow food in their own gardens.
I agree with your argument but it is laid out in an extremely black and white way.
Obviously farming 100s of acres "organically" isnt going to work as well. But i believe smaller scale operations would be a lot more efficient in terms of output.
Seed saving is another component to this too, which has created a system of debt for farmers, and could be argued is creating relience on other products like fertilisers and pesticides.
Look into landrace gardening particularly Joseph Lofthouse's book. It adds a whole new angle to this subject.
P.s I also think the rewilding movement is anti human and i heavily disagree with it. Those people assume humans and nature are separate entities. I believe we can live as part of the ecosystem and in balance with nature. It annoys me that they just want to throw everybody into concrete megacities and leave land to go "wild".
The obvious result of that is mass dependency on the system, and eventually mass starvation.
what you call the farming system is irrelevant how we feed the worlds population is. very relevant. The answer is not organics.
If humanity could cut its meat intake, the land that was then used for that could then be used for human consumption, I would think farming could become more sustainable. The debate on organic for me is the pesticide not fertiliser. I think with scientific advances we will have in the future plants engineered to target pests and insects engineered to take weeds and such. I would love to see more research into that area. But we have only slightly delved into that area with gmo’s which is a very brute force method, with crisper now it’s a new world it’s editing dna instead of modifying it.
A lot of animals are grazed on land not fit for anything else for example hills and fells. Grass is a major part of the cycle of sequestration and carbon adsorption, more than trees in many areas.
and the weeds, a farm i worked on had a few fields next to organic ones and weeds just spread from their fields so readily
That happens in every field, I don’t know a farmer who doesn’t have problems with weeds, organic, intensive or anything else.